Chapter Forty-One
Hugh charged into the ballroom and strode directly toward Charlotte. John Brantwood was a damned fool. What on earth was the bloody idiot thinking? Charlotte was his sister for God’s sake.
He cleared his throat quite loudly once he reached her. “Lady Charlotte, you will need to come with me for a moment.” When she only stared, he added, “Your brother has sent me to fetch you.”
“But I am promised for the next set,” Charlotte said. She turned to look at her present partner, but the young pup had managed to disappear into the assembled revelers.
He was probably intimidated. Possibly due to the frightening scowl Hugh had sent in his direction for just that purpose.
“You should come with me,” he told her.
“Whatever for?”
God, she was lovely. Whoever had created that dress she wore was a cruel, cruel woman.
“Do not argue, Charlotte. Come with me. Do not make a scene of it. Just take my arm and I will lead you to your brother.”
He led her to her brother’s study, shut the door, and stood in front of it, barring any attempt to exit.
“Where is my brother?”
“I lied to you, Charlotte. Your brother is not here. I have brought you here because I will not allow you to return to that room full of jackals.”
“Are you mad? You will not allow me to return to my own debut ball? You’re ridiculous.” She marched forward to stand in front of him and stared upward, considerably less intimidated by his scowls than the schoolboy she’d been dancing with. “Allow me to pass, immediately.”
“You cannot go out there.”
“Why not?”
“Your reputation is at stake.”
One dubious eyebrow rose to register her disbelief in that statement. “I may not be an expert as yet with the rules of English high society, but I’m quite certain it is far more damaging to a young girl’s reputation to be alone behind a closed door with a rakish gentleman than to be dancing in the middle of a ballroom with a hundred pairs of eyes watching.”
God, she had no idea. His eyes raked over her. “It may be more dangerous to your virtue, love, but in this circumstance your reputation is far safer here.”
Charlotte’s confident expression faltered. She stepped back. “Why?”
He stepped forward. She would not cooperate unless he told her why, but he did not want to tell her. He wanted her to be daring and furious and alive with fire, as she usually was. He did not want her to see her meek, unsure, and saddened by the rejection of an entire society. “There is untrue gossip circulating about you. A lot of it. It is all quite damning to your reputation. I won’t allow you to blindly move about in an entire room full of people who are so cruelly abusing you.”
“Why do you care? You have been cruelly abusing me for weeks?”
His tone softened. “I won’t let them hurt you, Charlotte. I will protect you.”
Accusation flared in her sapphire eyes. “Don’t look at me that way. Don’t give me that pitying look.” She crossed her arms tightly in front of her chest and cocked her head to one side. “I know what falsehoods are circulating about me. I also know which rumor is true, scandal or not. I worked in a kitchen. It’s not as though I sold myself.”
Hugh advanced slowly into the room, never taking his eyes from her. “A lady doesn’t speak that way.”
“You know I have never been and never will be a lady.”
She said it as if it didn’t matter, as though a lady were the last thing she’d ever aspire to be, but it was a lie. He’d have known that even if her eyes weren’t glassy with unshed tears.
He stepped to her, took her fisted hands, opened them, and kept them captive as he beheld her. “You are a better lady than any of them will ever have a chance to be.”
Charlotte sneered and tugged to free her hands, but he did not yield them. “It’s a game,” she said, her voice rising. “It’s all a game the duchess devised. There were already too many rumors to start, so instead of attempting to quash them, we are adding to them, until there are so many and they are so ridiculous that no one could possibly believe them.”
Hugh stared. “A game?”
“Why do they want so badly to find a scandal where there doesn’t need to be one? Why am I working so hard to become one of those hateful people?”
Hugh stared down into the blue pools of pure misery and failed to find the words to relieve her distress. With no other way of giving her comfort, he released her hands and crushed her to him instead, cradling her head against his chest.
He waited for her to pull away, but she didn’t. She released a small, muffled sob and clutched him tightly.
In that moment, he vowed revenge on every person who had ever dared to breathe a single disparaging word about this spirited, resilient, nymph-sized girl who’d never done anything to harm any one of them. He longed to lower his face to hers and kiss away every salty tear. He would take her into his arms the way he wanted and show her just how desirable she was, if only she wouldn’t hate him for it.
Charlotte released a sigh. She lifted a hand to wipe at her tears.
Hugh reached down to place his hand beneath her chin and tilt her face to his. He meant to say something clever—something teasing that would raise her ire and pull her out of tear-soaked misery. He meant to be the hero.
Instead, he was the villain. He made the terrible mistake of crushing his lips to hers and pouring every bit of fierce protectiveness into bruising kisses as though the strength of his passion could somehow overcome any weakness to which she had succumbed.
To his wonderment, she did not resist. Her arms stole around his neck, and Charlotte—his Charlotte—returned his kisses as urgently as he gave them. Unable to turn away what she gave so sweetly, his hands slid down her back to where he could lift her bottom and hold her firmly against him.
For this moment, just this moment, he would believe he nobly provided what Charlotte so desperately needed, and not that he had taken callous advantage.